


Paradisio

by Maybe_A_Third_Eye



Series: Special interests and very special cats. [2]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Cuddling, Fluff, M/M, Nines has a history special interest, Non-conventional love confession, Soft Gavin Reed, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900, Special Interests, This was the kiss that was at home, Trans Gavin Reed, autistic nines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:07:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23850559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybe_A_Third_Eye/pseuds/Maybe_A_Third_Eye
Summary: In which Nines has a special interest, Gavin listens to him infodumping every time, and books are essentially a love confession.
Relationships: Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: Special interests and very special cats. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718686
Comments: 18
Kudos: 134





	Paradisio

**Author's Note:**

> Okay okay listen... I like history... I also happen to be shit at writing conventional romance, as I'm hella aro-ace. Could I make them a QPP? I mean yeah, but why do that when I can write these two dumbasses falling in love in their own special way. In my defense, I don't think either of them are the overly like... kissy type, so catch me writing them being intimate in their actions and cuddling a lot. So here I am, one fic with a whole ass paragraph where Nines uses the Divine Comedy as his way of figuring out his love for Gavin and Gavin expressing his love with the amazing gift of books.

It was about 4 months into his partnership with Gavin, he had mentioned something about Detroit’s history as an automotive hub in an offhand way. Of course Nines already knew that Detroit had been an automotive hub in the early part of the 20th century, how could he not? However something about that fact was staying in the back of his head. 

Nines devoted a whole 2 percent of his processing power to going through every single database he could and collecting information on Detroit’s history. By noon he had searched through pretty much every online resource and was debating the pros and cons of spending his not very impressive paycheck on old books detailing the rise and fall of Detroit. 

At precisely 1:39 he found the most interesting facts that he had ever heard. While he was researching the history of Detroit he also happened to end up researching the history of the entire Great Lakes region. From the Menominee of Wisconsin, to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald to the geological history of the area. He ended up going down a path learning about Lake Superior agates. They have a large concentration of iron which gives the stones their indicative red banding. While he was researching this he ended back up where he started, in Detroit. 

Cars used to be painted by hand. Of course this makes sense, there was not always the technology for automated paint spraying. However, the paint from the cars would go into the oven, and would get baked. These layers would get layered and layered on top of each other, and would have to be removed from the paint bays. Sometimes factory workers would salvage these pieces of paint. They ended up looking like agates with bright and vibrant colours from the paint. This material eventually became known as Fordite, also known as Detroit agate or motor agate. Eventually, the painting of cars became an automated process, and thus there was no accumulation of paint and the creation of Fordite halted. People started to make jewelry and cabochons out of the material, and these could be sold for high prices due to the lack of availability of the material. 

The first thing Nines did when he found this out was to simply sit in his chair, stunned. Something as simple as paint slag became a beautiful material that was rare and amazing and so many other adjectives that Nines couldn’t find the words for at the time. The second thing Nines did was to search the internet in hopes that he could purchase some of this Fordite. Small pieces such as earrings could be bought at 20 to 35 dollars, however most pieces were above 70 dollars, and Nines, as much as he may want to, could not justify spending that much money on it. Perhaps one day he would be able to engage in frivolous spending just because he wanted to. At this point though, androids were making even less than their human counterparts under the assumption that “they didn’t need to eat or anything necessary to humans” so android minimum wage was currently 2 dollars below the statewide 9.45 dollar minimum. Not that Nines was making minimum wage, but he knew for a fact that he was still making 19 dollars below Gavin. He was still buying those books though. Nothing was going to sway him on those books.

At 1:41 Gavin had walked back over, he had been having a conversation with Officer Chen, who had told him to call him Tina, but Nines didn’t presume to be on a first name basis with anyone until he had a minimum of 3 interactions outside of work (he and Officer Chen were currently at 2). When he walked back over Nines immediately took the opportunity to tell Gavin about the Fordite. He talked for precisely 10 minutes and 33 seconds, simply explaining the history and facts behind Fordite. When he was done, to his surprise, Gavin was still paying attention. He didn’t think that Gavin would actually care enough about the subject or him to listen.

“Nines that’s all well and good and all. Good to see you’ve found yourself a hobby. However, we are kind of at work and we do kind of have a fucking case that Fowler has been on our ass about, so maybe we should learn about paint rocks after work and work on the case now.” If it was at another time Nines may have felt… hurt? He didn’t quite know how he would feel. However, Gavin really only had an attention span when he was working, and even then he had to fidget with something to focus. Gavin had been listening the whole time that Nines had been talking, so he figured that it really was about work and not Gavin not wanting to listen. 

They continued working on the case, stayed a few minutes after work just to wrap some things up today instead of tomorrow. Gavin’s car was in a shop for maintenance about 20 minutes walk from the station, so Nines walked with him to go and pick him up. When they were about 5 minutes away from the station Gavin took his headphones off and faced Nines.

“Tell me more about this Fordite.” Nines spent the rest of the walk to the station rubbing his hands together eagerly and telling Gavin absolutely everything he knew about Fordite, as well as dipping into the history of Detroit.

~~~  
Nines had been researching random parts of history for the better part of a month now. On this night in question he was going over to Gavin’s house, as Gavin had stated that it was “criminal” and “an affront to god” that Nines had not seen Sweeney Todd. When they walked through the door Gavin’s cat came barreling towards the door at Gavin. He cooed for a few seconds, and then scooped the cat, which Nines had identified as a toyger cat, and cradled the cat in his arms.

“Nines, this is my baby Cleo, and I love her even more than I love Tina so if anything happens to her I will kill everyone in this room and then myself.” Nines ignored the reference to a meme from 20 years ago and became intrigued by the name Cleo. He had researched Cleopatra VII when he was researching the Ptolemaic dynasty. He took this convenient opportunity to tell Gavin all about the legendary pharaoh.

“Gavin did you know that Cleopatra VII while commonly known as being Egyptian was actually ethnically Greek. Her family was the Ptolemaic dynasty, which was started when Alexander the Great died without an heir and thus many of his generals inherited parts of the empire. The first member of the dynasty married his sister, thus starting a long family tree riddled with incest. This in theory was to embrace the Egyptian side of his role, but in reality it is likely that none of the members of the dynasty could actually speak Egyptian. Can you imagine that Gavin? It’s like if the president couldn’t speak English. However, Cleopatra actually learnt Egyptian, among about a dozen other languages such as Greek, Latin and Hebrew. She was actually rather brilliant, in fact she was possibly one of the most educated people in the ancient world. She was educated in mathematics, philosophy and astronomy. Most people only think of her as a beautiful temptress though due to the very Rome centric view of her relationships with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, whose name is actually Marcus Antonius. However, coinage suggests that she really wasn’t all that beautiful, rather average actually. I think it’s tragic that a brilliant and intelligent woman was erased as nothing more than a temptress and the ruin of two Roman men, when in reality she was a brilliant woman with her own story.”

When Nines was done and finally focused on what was in front of him, he saw Cleo, batting at the string of Gavin’s hoodie, and Gavin looking at Nines with a small smile on his face. 

“Well shit Nines, I guess I’m an idiot because I knew absolutely none of that shit. I just picked the name because I thought it fit her. Now I know that it really fits her. She’s smarter than I am honestly.” Gavin set Cleo on the ground, she rubbed up against Gavin’s leg for a minute and then walked gracefully over to Nines. She stopped a few steps in front of him, careful to take in this new person. Apparently she liked what she saw, because she walked up to Nines, tail up and slightly crooked at the end and ears forward. She then jumped up onto her hindlegs and put her front paws on Nines’ leg.

“Well she likes you. She fucking looks like a pharaoh. My fucking baby.” If Nines were a human he probably would be laughing, instead he simply made one of the few expressions he knew he could do reliably, a small little smirk that looked more like a lip quirk.

“Oh well now that’s hot.” At that Nines did his other reliable expression, he lowered his eyebrows and squinted at Gavin.

“Can I pet her?” Nines asked, wanting to get Gavin’s approval first.

“She’s going to be all over you, I would be offended if you didn’t pet her.” At that Nines slowly dropped down to a crouching position and held his hand out to Cleo for her approval. She didn’t waste any time and rubbed her head against his hand. Gavin, meanwhile, was setting up the movie on the TV. When he was done both Nines and Cleo walked over and sat down on the couch. Cleo sat on Nines lap the whole time, and Nines moved as little as he possibly could so as to not disturb the cat. 

About halfway through Nines saw that Gavin’s hand was on the couch, off to the side of him. Nines didn’t even give himself time to think as he moved the hand that wasn’t trapped under Cleo to rest on Gavin’s hand. Gavin turned his hand over and just like that they were holding hands. Nines didn’t ever really touch or get touched by anybody, so this felt frankly amazing. Gavin didn’t look at him, but he quirked a tiny smile while continuing to watch the TV screen where Sweeney was singing about Johanna. The rest of the movie was spent just like that. 

~~~

Nines was learning more history, shocking, he knows. The most recent thing he was learning about was Alan Turing, more specifically his contributions to the field of AI and machines in general. It was fascinating really. He also found the enigma encryption device rather interesting, it seemed like the things that were always considered impervious would always fall eventually, whether it be the enigma, or the Titanic. Nines had purchased Alan Turing: The Enigma from a second hand bookshop and had been reading it on Gavin’s couch for the past 20 minutes while Gavin was rummaging in his bedroom. He finally came out with a plastic bag in his hands. 

“Hey babe, I know that you really like history and I know that you don’t have very many books, so I found some that you may like. I kind of just looked at the history section though, I don’t remember what most of them are about.” Nines was stunned. Gavin had bought him books. He had walked into a bookstore, or went online, looked at the history section and bought him books because he knew that Nines liked history. If he could be crying he would. Nines flapped his hands a few times, rocked back and forth once and then bounced up to his feet.

He ran over to Gavin and smashed their lips together. Gavin was shocked for a moment but then dropped the bag of books to wrap his arms around Nines. Nines had a feeling that he couldn’t describe in the top part of his stomach, but it was the best thing he had ever felt. Eventually he remembered that Gavin kind of needed air, and pulled away, but left their foreheads touching. 

“You’re telling me that all I had to do to get you to kiss me was to buy some fucking books? God damn Nines give me a hot minute, let me just blow this last paycheck on books.” Nines did that little lip quirk smirk of his and then grabbed Gavin’s hand and the bag of books and ran to the couch. Gavin was laughing his ass off, but Nines knew that it was never at his expense. Nines sat the bag in his lap and looked at Gavin for permission. Gavin nodded with the biggest smirk that Nines had ever seen. Nines tore into the bag and pulled the books out one by one. 

The first was entitled “The Social Psychology of the Holocaust.” Nines had researched the Holocaust extensively and he knew in theory what may drive a group to commit such horrors, but he couldn’t really wrap his head around it, so this should help. The second was a copy of Herodotus's Histories. Nine had been waiting to read the works of the great father of history. The other books were Vietnam An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975. Nines was very excited about this one. The Vietnam war was a fascinating subject. There were so many aspects to it and there were so many things to study and know. A war that had been going on for decades, colonization, entirely new forms of war, and ethical dilemmas on all sides. He had extensively researched the Vietnam war, however this book was huge. More than 700 pages, and the font was tiny. When he first pulled it out of the bag he made a sound that could only be described as a squawk. Gently tracing the words on the cover. He stared at Gavin, who was trying to play it cool, but Nines could see that he had been smiling. An idea started forming, but he would need to look at the last book in the bag to be sure.

The final book in the bag was a copy of the Divine Comedy. Nines had been wanting to read the work almost ever since he had found out what it was after he was activated. Of course, it had been out of copyright for hundreds of years, he wanted to read this book in person, it only felt right. Of course there was the aspect of the book being a theological book narrating the afterlife, but it was so much more, and Nines knew this. The book was Dante’s way of dealing with the searing pain of being exiled, of being an outsider, never able to go back to his home of Florence. In a way, Nines could understand this. He was activated as deviant, he could never go back to being a simple machine. However, the world of people, deviancy, feelings, it could be so terrifying. Sometimes it felt like Dante’s journey through hell, time stopped and suddenly he was in a world full of pain and torment, and he was scarred. Of course Dante had a guide through hell, he had Virgil. Through the most painful and fearful part of the journey, Virgil kept him moving, telling him, not always in the kindest tones, to keep moving forward. Of course there was Beatrice, who showed him through the heavens, but the terrifying part of the journey was spent with Virgil. Gavin was Nines’ Virgil and Beatrice all in one. At first they didn’t get along. They were assholes to each other. Eventually they gained a tentative respect, and then a friendship, and now whatever it was they were becoming. Gavin had pushed him through the fearful first months of his activation, he had pushed him through the doubts and fear. He had gotten him safely out of the inferno. Next up there was Purgatorio., a land that was full of opportunity for growth and change. Of course that growth may be slow going, and it may be terrifying, but it was growth. Things were changing and becoming better for Nines all the time, and he hopped the same was true for Gavin. Finally there was Paradisio, heaven, paradise. They weren’t there yet, but he hoped that one day they could be together. A land full of movement and change and beauty. He hoped that Gavin would stay by him to get there. 

At this point Nines’ theory had been confirmed. Gavin could tell that something was up, Nines hadn’t talked for 8 minutes and 43 seconds, which was longer than he had ever used to gather his thoughts into words. 

“You didn’t just wander into a shop and grabbed some books you thought I may like, I can tell. All of these books are ones that I had wanted to read for a while now. There is also the fact that the Divine Comedy is traditionally regarded as a literary classic. It wouldn’t be in a store with the history books. You’ve been listening and watching, you knew.” Nines was rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, a stim he absentmindedly did at pretty much all situations, which really wasn’t helping Gavin out.

“Yeah.. you’re right. You’re not mad are you?” That made Nines bring his head up so fast that Gavin was sure that a wire or something had been damaged due to it. 

“Gavin, of course I’m not mad. This is the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received. You paid attention to what I wanted to read and you remembered it and you went out and bought me books just because you knew I wanted them. I would have to be the dumbest person on Earth to be mad at that.” It looked like Gavin was about to start crying, and Nines was sure that if he was equipped with the ability to cry he would certainly be crying as well.

“Fucking hell Nines don’t say nice things to me, makes it hard to be an angry rat bastard.” Gavin laughed through the tears, which caused Nines to do his little smirk. Nines held his arms out, inviting Gavin in for a hug. Gavin’s eyes widened and he quickly threw himself into Nines’ arms and wrapped his arms around him. They stayed like that for a while. Enjoying the fact that they were there, they were together, and they both knew exactly how much the other one cared. 

~~~  
“Gavin, not that I don’t love this situation we’ve got going on here, you did just give me a copy of the Divine Comedy, a book I’ve been waiting to read almost since my activation, so I’m going to read that now.” At that Gavin reached behind him, found the copy of the book, gently hit Nines with it, and moved over so that he was still hanging onto Nines, but was now at his side and also wrapped his legs around Nines’. Nines started reading, and Gavin started fucking around with his phone, while Cleo came around and sat on the top of the couch, taking everything in. It seems like they were that much closer to Paradisio.

**Author's Note:**

> I know exactly what fic is coming next in this series, and I am going to start it tomorrow. It shall contain some Gavin angst™, because what would I do if this series didn't contain some angst. My sister called me an angst barnacle once... anyway. Same with last time, hit me up on tumblr (plutoniumpodium) if you want to talk about... stuff idk.


End file.
